~ designer & thinker

Category Archives: inspiration

Whether it’s peeling paint, rusty rails, chipped concrete or graffiti-on-graffiti, for those who love the city, decay is the new vintage. It’s also an overarching theme in Yusuke Kagari’s bags and accessories. The designer, who collaborated with Keisuke Nagami in an exhibition last month, puts the same attention to detail into his pieces as any other designer. Except, instead of trying to make them look new, he tries to make them look 100 years old.

Analysis

When he living in the city, in his eyes the continuity created by walls and concrete is one beautiful landscape .Simply put, on my opinion, each of Kagari’s pieces is a love letter to the city and all it’s beautiful cuts and bruises.

His work “Organic Metal” is about the old, the new and the ambivalence in-between，he want to preserve, or possibly conserve, a snapshot of the aging process and a specific moment in the life/death of organic materials like mostly bread or bread dough.

Analysis

These organic material is formed in jewelry pieces. I really like the similarities between the way humans grow up and develop, I think his works look like evaluation in itself by following the already finished process from a distance.

‘You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.’

Alexander McQueen

Analysis

I feel McQueen’s works consistently promoted freedom of thought and expression and championed the authority of the imagination. In this, he was an exemplar of the Romantic individual, the hero-artist who staunchly followed the dictates of his inspiration. It is very important that his work broke the traditional wearable way. I’m inspired by this.

The exhibition title, W(E)AVE, suggests the shared concerns that both artists explore in their work. Elana Herzog’s primary focus rests on the deconstruction of woven fabrics, such as found bedspreads and carpet, while Michael Schumacher’s dedication is to literally weaving together discrete audio events, comprised of sound waves, in order to emphasize the space in which they are presented.

Analysis

I think the resulting environment created by Herzog and Schumacher will induce both a visceral and thoughtful response from the viewer/listener, where sound plays off visual pattern and materiality merges with the ethereal. The natural texture give me a feeling of melody and decaying.

Technique&material

Schumacher incorporated elements from these sounds with synthesized sounds, such as sine tones, and more traditional instrumentation, including piano, cello, and violin. Processed in his computer using Max/MSP software, the sound was organized into eleven discrete channels, in what Schumacher describes as a grid metaphor. Presented on eleven speakers dispersed throughout the space, the composition will evoke a “grid” or weave of audio experience unfolding through time.

Nate by Lisa Berkert Wallard is a cabinet that looks like it was slowly eroded with time.

From the designer:

“More often than not, the idea process required to create something defines its purpose and character more than its appearance. Like the idea of reincarnation, the creative process is a journey where ideas take different forms. It is the story of how our creations come to life and how they affect – and are affected by – their environment.”

The process of transforming the deceased rodents into intricate floral artworks is not for the weak-stomached. Hideki must freeze his mice before picking out their bones and using the remains as fragile building blocks for his flowers, collectively known as “Honebana.” He quickly photographs his constructed masterpieces and then smashes the sculptures, ending the delicate art ritual by burying the bones in the ground.

Analysis

While I see Hideki’s project might seem morose at first. I think his flowers are meant to reflect on the momentary nature of beauty; drawing attention to the fact that most creatures, both exquisite and repulsive, will reach their demise. In an email to The Huffington Post, the artist simply stated, “I hope that my artwork, Honebana, is spread all over the world.”

Cities are transformed into eroding terrains in the map art series Flowing City Map by Geneva-based artist Chaotic Atmospheres. The artist created the images by processing city maps in World Machine, a 3D terrain software. The software is normally used to create realistic 3D terrains, but Chaotic Atmospheres used it to add erosion and natural landforms to maps of Beijing, New York City, Paris, and other cities around the world.

Analysis

I found the influence of cities on their environment as a kind of invisible fluid that overflows from the city to its surrounding. Erosion and natural features take the form of streaks of color that flow throughout the densely packed metropolis like water, he is a really creative artist, It is surprised that landscape into a dreamy plane of ripples and currents. Inspired by his work, I think the erosion form can be dreamy world.

Description
British ceramicist Tamsin van Essen is fascinated by what she describes as the “the fragile boundary between attraction and repulsion,” a place where tension is created by the visible and the obscured. For her Erosion series Essen created layered blocks of alternating black and white porcelain which she then sandblasted to mimic biological forms similar to a parasitic virus in the process of devouring a host. In a even more literal example, she created a series of ceramic vessels that appear to be infected with specific bacteria.

Analysis

I think the pieces migrate throughout the building during the second and third phases with new experimental works being added, revealing the artist’s thought process in responding to the building and the movement within it. Inspired by her work, I really focus on the fragile formation and try to explore eroded rormation in nature.

* Tectonic strain = when the earth’s tectonic plates shift, it can heat up layers of rock, causing the water within them to vaporize. If the rocks contain quartz or silicon, the column of vaporized water is channeled up through the surface and can produce electricity.

* Extraterrestrial = because they have been reported over swampy areas, some of the strange lights are believed to be UFOs.

Hitodama

In Japanese folklore, Hitodama (Japanese 人魂; meaning “human soul”) are balls of fire that mainly float in the middle of night.They are said to be “souls of the dead that have separated from their bodies,” which is where their name comes from.

Analysis

I start to think putting light in the bone china mold, due to the character of bone china. I research history and contemporary background of bone china before, at the time, I noticed the translucent is an essential identity of bone china, this make bone china different with other kinds of porcelain. I’m inspired by this point, why I can’t apply light in my works? How I take advantage of this character.

I have researched some artists related bone china, Kate MacDowell’s is one of them, she inserted warm light in her works, so we can see the rough inner structure, while her works are devote to interpret the clash between the natural world and the modern-day environmental impact of industrialized society. This might be inspired me because of the method she adopt light in her works.

From my concept, Hitodama are believed in Japanese folklore to the souls of the newly dead, taking form as mysterious fieryapparitions. In addition, hitodama is a natural phenomenon, is a kind of chemical reaction from elements of bones. I think I can give a new soul and belief to my works through inserting light in works, light can be regarded as a new soul to be inserted in works.

Generally, people get quiet and consideration when they are surrounded little light. I hope viewer could consider the meaning of rebirth.